„Mütter schlafen nachts nicht, damit ihre Kinder nicht zur Organgewinnung auseinandergenommen werden“: Wie russische Propaganda die Evakuierung von Kindern in der Region Donezk stört

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For the police evacuation unit “White Angel” from frontline Donetsk Oblast, the past year became the most costly in terms of vehicles. A dozen armored vehicles used to evacuate civilians from the kill zone, including small children, became targets for enemy drones. They struck the vehicles even when they had seen with their own eyes how civilians had been loaded into them the day before for evacuation.

“At some point we had to remove the nets and tear off the branded ‘White Angel’ stickers from the vehicle bodies, because as soon as we appeared on the horizon, the hunt would immediately begin. What this year was like… Children. Many children we searched for in basements, in some pits among vegetable gardens. Many people whom the Russians simply would not allow us to save: they hit one civilian, knowing that we would come. And as soon as either we or volunteers are nearby, drones start chasing us like vultures,” says Hennadiy Yudin, head of the police crew “White Angels” in Donetsk Oblast, describing a year of evacuations from Donetsk Oblast.

About the evacuation year in the east, new crimes by the Russians, children’s lives taken on the Pokrovsk direction, and “transplant hunters,” journalists from “Vchasno” were told by the head of the police crew “White Angels” in Donetsk Oblast — a place people come to from all across frontline Ukraine to learn evacuations near the front.

**Women hide children in holes so they won’t be taken out of the city where shootouts begin**

Last year, evacuation became a difficult psychological and physical test not only for the “Angels,” but also for those they tried to save. The head of the evacuation crew recalls that often it is not easy to decide on rescuing people — considering the conditions in which they have to reach them. Each time when it was not possible to pick up residents of “gray” Donetsk Oblast became a reminder that the risk can be unjustified.

“Among the most recent evacuations that stuck in my memory was one from Kostiantynivka. We arrived to evacuate a woman with her low-mobility husband, who could barely walk. And while they were gathering their belongings, a drone attacked our vehicle. People heard it, came outside… and refused to go. They decided that the road was more dangerous than staying under drones. In the end, they stayed there,” explains Hennadiy Yudin.

Similar cases also occurred during the evacuation from Avdiivka in 2023 and have already become quite ‘traditional’ for forced evacuation. In particular, as has the hiding of children from the police in conditions in which it is hard for even animals to survive.

“In Avdiivka during the time of forced evacuation there was a bomb shelter under a store. A family with a minor girl was hiding there. We came, we knew they were there, but we couldn’t find them. And on one of the visits, a man who lived in the shelter said that the family had made a hole in the wall under the stairs and hid there so they wouldn’t be noticed. We started searching — and indeed found that woman with the child, and also another mother with a two-year-old girl we didn’t even know about. We talked, convinced them to leave, made documents. The mother with the little girl was taken abroad to Finland. But her brother and mother stayed in the bomb shelter. And when, before the occupation, Avdiivka started being leveled with KABs — there was a hit on the ATB. Up to 20 people were killed there, including her mother. The bodies remained under the rubble,” the police officer recalls.

Among those evacuated in 2025 were families who were waiting for occupation not because they had nowhere to go, but in order to travel ‘in a simplified way’ through occupied territories to relatives in Donetsk or to the territory of the Russian Federation. Seeing that they succeeded is quite easy — a change of phone number or a photo on the avatar clearly shows where those people ended up. However, Hennadiy Yudin is convinced that he is ready to evacuate a family knowing that they will still end up ‘on the other side.’ He is therefore set on pulling them out from under bombs, after which they will travel abroad in a civilized manner and undergo filtration without drones overhead.

“We explained to families with children: we understand that in Donetsk or in Russia there may be relatives ready to take them in. Then let it be better that we evacuate them, rather than them sitting in a kill zone waiting for Russian forces, who would transport them on pickup trucks in the cold through the ruins of Donetsk Oblast.”

**Russian drones, hunting the “White Angels,” killed children throughout 2025**

At the beginning of this year, when forced evacuation was announced in Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, and later in Dobropillia, the “White Angels” quickly processed requests from families with children. People, terrified by the killings of civilians in the open, called themselves and asked to be evacuated. However, some residents did not just refuse to leave—they even tried to bring children into active combat zones, hiding them in boxes from equipment. Hennadiy Yudin emphasizes that these cases show grieving parents and sick people attempting to return to hell.

“At checkpoints, we fought this as best we could: if we saw that a family was heading to a settlement from which forced evacuation was ongoing, with a child—one parent would be left with the minor, the other allowed through. But unfortunately, people found paths to smuggle children under rockets and drones, into mined areas. There were even taxi drivers who, for money, transported children with their parents into the ‘gray zone.’ In Pokrovsk, there was a case when we evacuated the same boy with his parents three times from the Shakhtarsky neighborhood,” recalls Yudin.

Unfortunately, due to adult inaction, young people died in 2025. For example, on Constitution Day, a drone in Pokrovsk attacked a boy and a girl riding bicycles in the city center. The boy suffered severe injuries—amputation of both lower limbs and an injured arm. There was little time to save him. The applied tourniquets were insufficient; immediate medical evacuation was necessary.

When law enforcement officers were transporting the boy to the hospital, their vehicle was attacked by a “Molniya” drone. One of the “White Angels,” Kostya Tunitsky, was injured. But the worst part of the situation was the lost time.

“We waited an hour for another evacuation unit, first sent the girl and the injured boy. Unfortunately, he died, although without the strike he could have been saved… On the second trip, we sent Kostya to the hospital. On the third, we went ourselves,” recalls the head of the “Angels,” describing that tragic day.

**Legally, negligent parents can still kill their children through inaction. The “White Angels” have no right to forcibly save minors from death**

One of the most pressing problems in Donetsk Oblast since 2022 is the impossibility of evacuating minors from the “gray zone” without the consent (and presence) of their parents or one of them. By the end of 2024, volunteers and law enforcement stressed that children in frontline territories were dying due to parental inaction, forced to survive in inhumane conditions under bombs and drones. In 2025, the situation worsened because the Russian advance targeted the Pokrovsk direction. Since 2023, many internally displaced people (IDPs) had chosen it as a “permanent new home,” considering cities in that area relatively safe. The population swelled with residents from Avdiivka, Kurakhove, Chasiv Yar, and Toretsk. People who had lost their homes once—even under threat of death—were afraid to endure it a second time, even when it came to families with children.

Now, having experience in how long it takes to persuade parents, the “White Angels,” together with juvenile police and representatives of the regional military-civil administration, visit addresses where families live well before forced evacuation. Sometimes, to explain the potential consequences of refusing evacuation, they have to show bloody examples of what happened to similar families in other towns or even other parts of the same city. There is no shortage of photos and videos—unfortunately, all are real.

The “preemptive” tactic works—many families leave, especially when they are offered accommodation in dormitories or houses. However, this does not solve the problem globally, since there will always be parents who return to hell with minors.

“As a police unit, ‘White Angel,’ we can only ensure law and order according to our functional duties. We cannot forcibly take a child. Juvenile police can issue an administrative report to parents if the family returned or refuses to leave. That report for failure to fulfill parental duties is sent to court, where the cases are reviewed,” explains Hennadiy Yudin.